Holy Saturday neared its conclusion as the sun set across the diocese on Saturday, April 4. While some were fast asleep, faithful flocked to Columbus St. Joseph Cathedral that night to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
An Easter Vigil Mass was held at 9 p.m. at the diocese’s mother church located in downtown Columbus. Bishop Earl Fernandes celebrated the liturgy.
During the Mass, faithful gained several new brothers and sisters in Christ. Individuals in formation to be baptized Catholic, known as catechumens, and enter full communion with the Church through the Holy Eucharist and Confirmation, referred to as candidates, received their sacraments.
The multi-hour liturgy included nine readings, seven from the Old Testament and two from the New Testament. After the celebration of baptism, the faithful renewed their baptismal promises.
The following is Bishop Fernandes’ complete homily:
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad.” (Ps 117:24)
This holy night, we sing these words with the Psalmist; this is truly the work of the Lord – life without end! St. Caesarius of Arles described this day as the “day in which the Lord fills the soul of each person with joy and exultation and in which He makes the face of the earth splendid with the beauty of springtime.”
I welcome all of you here, especially our Elect and candidates for full communion, along with their godparents, sponsors, family members and friends. During these past days, we have recalled with great emotion the Lord’s Passion and His immense love for us.
On Tuesday, I gathered with the priests for the Chrism Mass. I consecrated the chrism with which our newly baptized and candidates will be confirmed, but I also invited the priests, whose hands were consecrated with chrism, to meditate on their hands and on the hands of God. On Holy Thursday, I washed the feet of men who were incarcerated, and I preached that evening about the Lord washing His disciples’ feet, the institution of the Eucharist and priesthood; and, the new commandment He has given us. Yesterday, I preached about the need to fix our eyes upon the One who was pierced for our offenses. This evening I wish to speak to you about the voice – the voice of God – to which both our ears and our hearts should be attentive. Jesus’ body was taken down from the Cross, cleaned, enshrouded, and laid to rest. The stone was rolled back and not a sound broke the silence of the tomb.
The legacy of the God-Man seemed to be a scented weighty bundle on a shelf. When His body was placed in the tomb, it literally seemed like dead weight. The stone was rolled back, and everything was silent and dark. I live with Msgr. Frank Lane, and he was recounting how some years ago, he had to teach catechesis to blind children, and he asked a little girl what darkness was like. She responded: “It’s like being put in a closet where you are all alone and can’t hear anything.”
During this night the perspective is inverted. Beginning with the Easter fire, we saw the light of Christ and heard the beautiful Exsultet. Beginning with the words of the First Reading, we heard the voice of God: “Let there be light” and finishing with the Gospel, we hear the reversal of our fortune – from silence, darkness, and isolation to light, communion, and the proclamation that He is Risen. The tomb of Christ is not simply a piece of real estate in a cemetery in Jerusalem. There is light emanating from the grave!
This light is an expression of the energy that science recognizes as the origin of all that exists. We recognize it as uncreated light. Tradition refers to the area round Jesus’s Cross and grave as the center of the earth, and symbolically and theologically, this is true. The saving events that have taken place here, which we have remembered in these days, are the nucleus of our history. Only in the light of these events can history (and our future) be truly understood.
The liturgy helps us see further but through our ears. It proclaims the Gospel of Easter based on the Biblical account of creation. Jesus’s victory has a cosmic dimension. We shall only realize how wonderful it is when we acknowledge the Risen One as Lord of the world. The passages we heard from the Old Testament speak to us about the Risen Lord just as much as those from the New Testament. Christ is not only the center of the earth, He is the center of all the events they recount. He is the fulfillment of all they promised and prefigured.
St. Melito of Sardis put it this way, writing in the voice of Christ: “I am the Passover of your salvation. I was present in many so as to endure many things. In Abel, I was slain; in Isaac, I was bound; in Jacob, a stranger; in Joseph sold; in Moses exposed; in David persecuted; in the prophets dishonored. I became incarnate of the Virgin. Not a bone of mine was broken on the tree. I was buried in the earth but rose from the dead and was lifted up to the heights of heaven.”
Yes, it is important to use our ears to hear God’s word. God made all there is by His Word. Man was formed to resemble the Word and to be illumined by it. We refused to listen. We opted for darkness. God did not abandon us. He spoke to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. He spoke to us through the prophets, calling us to conversion and fidelity, with the promises of new life. He spoke to us through the Word. The Word became Flesh to re-ignite His light in us – to banish the darkness.
The Word entered the mute silence of death to resound there and to let His fire burn so that Christ’s faithful, when their hour comes, may go forth to encounter physical death in peace, with hope, recognizing that the stone is rolled back, opening a way to eternal life. Through the Risen Lord, the Glorified Word, we are not closed in anymore. Death has no more power over us!
Later, in the liturgy, we will bless the water of the baptismal font, from which will spring new life for our Elect. We should listen attentively with our ears to the prayer of the blessing of the water as it recounts “types” – pre-figurations of baptism – the Spirit breathing over the waters at creation; the waters of the Flood; the parted waters of the Red Sea; the waters of the Jordan; and the water from Christ’s pierced side.
All these events, which we heard, are fulfilled in the Sacrament of Baptism, in which Christ, who was present at those events, now baptizes these individuals. He gives them new life, making them a new creation; sets them free from slavery to sin and death; draws them out of darkness and leads them into His marvelous light. Christ gives them a new family –the Church, numbering them among those of His flock. He gives them a new heart and a new Spirit, whose temple they will become. Through baptism, they are drawn from death to life, and they join the pilgrimage through the desert of this earth to the new and eternal Jerusalem!
St. Leo the Great tells us: “All that the Son of God did and taught for the reconciliation of the world is not simply known to us through the historical record of the past; we also experience it through the power of his present works.”
His present works are our salvation. Through the Holy Spirit, which the newly baptized will receive and through the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit received by those confirmed, they will be transformed. Together, they and we, who have already received these gifts, are transformed, over the course of a lifetime, into His image, and we image Christ in the world.
Through the Sacrament of Confirmation, we are strengthened to live more fully our baptism; to be configured more each day to Christ; to defend Christ and His Church; and to bear witness to Christ. The Holy Spirit transforms us into the image of the Son, and so, as St. Ambrose puts it, “The Father sees and loves in us what He sees and loves in His beloved Son.”
Tonight, the all-powerfulness of love is proved. It was St. Ambrose who baptized St. Augustine, who famously wrote at his conversion in his Confessions: “You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”
Yes, God is calling all of us, if we open our ears to hear His voice. One day, even those in the tomb, will hear His voice calling them from death to life. For now, God hungers and thirsts for our love. He seeks to touch our lives with the fire of His love. Our God, the God of fire and light, loves all He has made, and desires that it should not die but live. Each of us is infinitely loved, called to fullness of life. This is the Good News: You are loved! Live accordingly!’ Death is dead. Christ lives! He is Risen! He is truly Risen! Alleluia!